History of Mercy Medical Center

In the early 1900s, Rosa Klorer wanted to establish a faith-based hospital in the growing city of Canton. She purchased President William McKinley’s former home on North Market Street and presented it to the Diocese of Cleveland for the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine to use as a hospital which would be open to everyone, rich and poor alike, regardless of religious faith or nationality.

When the Sisters formally opened the 18-bed Mercy Hospital in the McKinley home on September 24, 1908 – the feast day of Our Lady of Mercy – it had been exactly 57 years since the first Sisters left Boulogne sur Mer, France, to care for the orphans and sick of northeast Ohio.

Mercy Hospital soon outgrew its original building and in 1911 opened a new 53-bed facility at 8th Street and North Market. Over the next 38 years, with the help of many generous donations, the hospital continued to expand its facilities and services.

On April 24, 1950, the Timken Foundation of Canton presented the H. H. Timken mansion and its 30.8-acre tract of land at Harrison Avenue and 12th Street N.W. to the Sisters. The reconditioned home, which could accommodate 72 patients, was dedicated in 1952. In 1956, the hospital received full accreditation by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals.

Groundbreaking for Timken Mercy Hospital began in 1953 and was completed in 1957. In 1970, the hospital finished its ten-story tower and, on July 11, 1979, broke ground on a $32,000,000 renovation/expansion project, including a new five-story medical office building, a parking garage and updates to 15 hospital departments and areas. Since the early 1980s, Mercy has established nine off-site health centers in Stark, Carroll and Tuscarawas Counties, and opened a state-of-the-art intensive care unit in 2009 and expanded emergency department in 2014.

During the 1990s, Mercy emerged as a local and national leader in advanced heart care, achieving an impressive list of “firsts” in heart care, including the world’s first angioplasty in an emergency department in 1998 and the nation’s first accredited chest pain center in 2003 and first fully functioning cardiac catheterization lab in an emergency department in 2006. Mercy has been recognized six times by Truven Health Analytics and twice by U.S. News and World Report as one of the 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals in the United States. A Mission: Lifeline Heart Attack Receiving Center, the hospital is one of only four Ohio heart centers in 2013 to be awarded the Mission: Lifeline Gold Performance Achievement Award. Mercy has received this recognition two years in a row.

The hospital’s cancer center has also received the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer’s (CoC) Outstanding Achievement Award three times, making Mercy one of a select group of only 75 U.S. health care facilities with accredited cancer programs to receive this national honor for surveys performed in 2014.

Mercy also is the first hospital within a five-county service area to institute a comprehensive, hospital-based dental clinic and dental residency program. Opened in 2007, the dental clinic offers preventive, diagnostic, restorative and emergency dental care for poor and underserved.

For more than 100 years, Mercy’s mission has remained unchanged: to continue Christ’s healing ministry by providing quality, compassionate, affordable and accessible care for the whole person. As a steward of the legacy of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine, Mercy will continue its passion for health care leadership, quality and faith-based service, now and every day of its next 100 years.

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Effective Friday, March 20, at 3 p.m., Mercy is temporarily stopping all hospital visitation until further notice. If you are a maternity services patient, please click HERE for the complete and updated visitation / support person directives.